September 27, 2009
Do It Yourself Birmingham
Birmingham City Council recently launched their redesigned and redeveloped website. Costing £2.8 million and taking over five years, to say it is controversial is an understatement, especially when it became very clear that the price and timescale is not reflected in the quality.
Following the initial reaction from Birmingham residents, local government bloggers and webbies everywhere a group of volunteers led by Stef Lewandowski have combined their efforts to create BCCDIY. A wiki built on the content of the Birmingham website; the goal is to improve the content, and make the information easier to find, understand and update and after their first hack-day, it’s looking great with plenty of advanced functionality already in place.
There are plenty of examples in the wider web world where a wiki style website has worked, but could this ever work for a local government site? Could (or even would) a council effectively hand their content over to the people? It will be a huge investment in time for moderation and administration, but surely no more than writing it all yourself?
What about handing over key online services to third party products and mashups? Green Box Day gives you bin collection times if you are willing to hand over your data, Fix My Street gives you an excellent way to report problems and Get Satisfaction gives a solid customer support service.
Using community generated content and services could have endless benefits in the quality of data and the standard of service but do the pros outweigh the cons? Is there a council out there brave enough to try it?
The truth is I don’t think anyone knows, but when a council does get the guts to go with a community driven site, we will all be watching with baited breath. In the meantime with interest from SOCITM, TV news and even the UK Parliament, BCCDIY will certainly give some weight to the notion.